Where has the time gone...

I can't believe that I have now completed all of my classes at Brock! Where has the past five years gone?! It seems like just yesterday I was showing up in residences, thinking about how looong graduation was away...and now its only months!
While I am very excited about finishing classes, I am going to miss all of my friends at the university!
I am also very excited about my next block placement. I am not doing an out of region placement, so I will be in my last placement for 7 months, and I am really looking forward to getting to know my students in this time. I am looking forward to becoming actively involved in my placement school and beginning unit planning! Good Luck to all of you in your upcoming block, and keep in touch!

Bowling

It was great to get out and have some fun bowling last night... and the pictures are good for some laughs too-check them out!
Hopefully we can all do something again before we head out into our blocks again!
Also, thanks you everyone who organized the event!

Mock Interviews

Having the opportunity to have four principals discuss cover letters, resumes, and the interview process use was very beneficial. Also, I am thankful for having the opportunity to observe what a real interview would look like, and having the chance to answer possible interview questions in a small group. Furthermore, I thought that this weeks followup activity in counseling group was also beneficial. By once again breaking into small groups we had the chance to answer even more questions, and really got a feel for what the expected answers would be. I now feel somewhat more relieved about what an interview is like and the kinds of questions to expect.

Social Issues Day

I would just like to reflect on today's social issues day. First, I found the plenary session in the morning to be most interesting and useful. I feel the survivors experiences made me realize the true devastations of the Holocaust and provided some excellent insights on how the Holocaust could be presented in a classroom and its relevance to today. Further, the resource package provided to us, I feel is an excellent way to further our individual knowledge and feel more confident about teaching the subject.

In the afternoon I had the opportunity to attend the introduction to TRIBES workshop. I felt the guest speaker was excellent in presenting the material, and came with an extensive background knowledge and experiences to share with us. In addition he provided us with some great activities that we could use in our own classrooms. Lastly, I thought the resource package contained even more great ideas and effective strategies that could be brought into almost any classroom. Let me know if you would like a copy of this booklet.

The Contemporary Moral Issues for Catholic Teachers was the other workshop I attended. The presenter was wonderful and brought with him excellent answers to any questions we had concerning moral issues that we may be faced with in our classrooms. He was most helpful in assisting us construct useful and positive responses to questions our future students may present us with.

Thoughts on Applications

Apprehensive
Pressure
Police checks
Late nights
I really want to succeed
Catholic reflections
Attachments
Time consuming
Instructions
OCT
Need a cover letter!
Stress

Guest Speaker

I really enjoyed the guest speaker that we had last week. I feel that she provided some very insightful ideas in regards to classroom management and rules. The speakers recommendations that rules should never be phrased as "If... Then" type statements was a new concept for me; I like this idea as I think having rules phrased positively is more likely to leave a lasting impression with the students, and hopefully they will remember them. In addition, I liked her recommendations of preparing and planing rules, routines, and procedures early in the school year, and communicating them clearly; I feel that early implementation eliminates confusion for the students in what is expected of them. Also, I believe that if teachers construct and implement rules at the beginning of the year the students will not be surprised by the consequences of misbehavior. This being said I feel that the consequences of student misbehavior should also be outlined.

Further, her idea that "children do well if they can. If they can't, we need to figure out why so we can help" was very intriguing for me as it directly relates to a goal that I have set for Block I which is: To learn how to incorporate a variety of teaching strategies into my lesson plans to meet the diverse needs/multiple learning styles of all students. By doing this I will be "figuring out" the needs of my students so they can do well.

Micro-Teach

First off I just want to say GREAT JOB EVERYONE!! I thought you all did an excellent job on your micro teaching!

I feel that my overall teaching-learning strategies for my micro-teach were well thought out and successful. I made an attempt to limit the amount of direct teach used with the students as I feel this is important to keeping the students engaged and involved with the material. While I realize that with every lesson and subject the amount of direct teaching will vary, I am going to make a conscious effort to always include my students in discussions, group work, activities etc. to keep them involved in the learning.

In my future lessons I need to work on my grammatical skills when I am speaking to my students. I have a tendency to use “you guys”, “gonna”, “so”, and “yah” several times during a lesson. I will have to start making more of a conscious effort not to use these words and thus be a good role model for my students. Also, I know realize the importance of correctly phrasing questions so I do not say, “can you”, “ could you please” or “are you okay with that”. I had never thought that by phrasing questions in such a manner portrayed that I was not taking authority; I will attempt to be more cautious of this

From the micro teaching experience I feel as though I finally understand the amount of material that can be covered in a certain period of time. Prior to this experience I feel like I had no concept of this. I also have a better sense for the speed at which grade eight students work; while I realize that not all students will work as quickly as these six students, I feel as though I have a better feel for when an activity or lesson is dragging on and needs to move to the next step.

Overall I think the micro teaching experience was very positive and I have learned a lot!